Saturday, December 02, 2006

The Bush Administration as a Charlie Chaplin Film

I usually tape "Imus in the Morning" on MSNBC. I know - that's revealing too much, but I get a kick out of the old grouch. Of course, the news segments are hours old by the time I watch, so I usually fast-forward to the interviews. It was during one of these moments when I saw the perfect view of the Bush administration: High speed like a Charlie Chaplin movie. The President walked comically to his helicopter, waved really fast, then climbed quickly up the steps of Air Force One, and waved again. Everything finally made sense. The Bush presidency is a Charlie Chaplin movie - that's the perfect vehicle. You could call it, "The Not-So-Great Dictator".

Unfortunately, the tape slows back down, and we have our President saying things about Iraq like he did this past week: "There's one thing I'm not going to do, I'm not going to pull our troops off the battlefield before the mission is complete."

Off the battlefield? What battlefield? Most of our dead and wounded come from driving around Iraq waiting for an explosion to tear their vehicles and bodies apart. Maybe they die by sniper fire while standing at a forlorn checkpoint or guarding the Ministry of Oil. Battlefield? This isn't a battlefield. You can win on one of those.

President Bush went on to say that al Qaeda is the problem in Iraq. His statements now represent the final stage of a colossal failure - even the spin is spinning out. We're winning the war on terrorism but this terrorist group we're dismantling is now big enough to dominate Iraq? It's really quite desperate and beyond sad. He should stick to the phony tough-guy act. Don't try and explain - it just makes everything worse.

The best part about viewing the Bush administration in fast forward would be to shorten the remaining time. We've already got lots of good Chaplin-esque footage like the President strutting on the aircraft carrier wearing his little tough-guy jumpsuit. That'll look excellent in fast motion. Unfortunately, he started talking again. You remember, don't you? The "Mission Accomplished" speech?

See, that would be the another nice touch in "The Not-So-Great Dictator" homage to the Chaplin films. It would be a silent movie, so you couldn't hear the President speak.